Madame LeFroy, as her neighbors called her, became a good
friend to Jane Austen. Young mother Anne LeFroy initially invited Jane to the Ashe parsonage
to play with her children but the rapport developed between Jane and the woman
who was twenty-five years older.

Ashe House. In 1783 Anne’s
husband took

over this rectory two miles from Steventon Rectory.

Ashe is the green star

Isaac George LeFroy (1745-1806)

Anne LeFroy, a published poet, a reader, a sophisticate, acted
as mentor to the young writer, offering her something her family did not
throughout Jane’s adolescence and twenties.

Anne was an
intellectual, a“bluestocking,” a type

satirized (note the stocking) in the humorous

Dr. Syntax series of the times.

During the winter of 1804-1805 Anne’s death was the first in
a sad series of events. On Jane’s 29th birthday Anne fell from a run-away
horse. She hit her head and died within twelve hours. Jane, living in Bath at the time, was heartbroken. A month later Jane’s father died. Two important links to her childhood were gone.

Friendship by Bettina Havig

Riding sidesaddle with
both legs on one side of the horse.

Jane
Austen never cared for riding.

We might imagine Anne LeFroy bolting over the head of her
horse but it is more likely she became entangled in her side saddle. In Jane
Austen’s England women rode in special contraptions designed to protect their
feminine anatomy. Despite the dangers in riding sideways and off balance, a
woman riding astride risked her reputation. Risking one’s neck was considered
the better bargain.

Woman strapped into a
side saddle,

fashion plate, 1807

Jane was fortunate to have such a
friend as Anne, whose obituary described her as a “lovely, accomplished, and
most extraordinary woman.” We can remember Madame LeFroy with Friendship, a
nine-patch given the name by Kansas City Star in 1934

BlockBase #1648

Cutting a 12” Block

A - Cut 4 squares 4-7/8”. Cut each in half
with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Jane’s sister Cassandra fell in love with a boarder at her
father’s school. Three Fowle brothers attended the school, becoming close to
James Austen and his sisters. When Cass was in her early twenties she and Tom
Fowle agreed to marry but, as a minister in the Church of England, Tom had to
wait to marry until he secured a living. Through an eminent cousin, the Earl of
Craven, Tom was promised a position in Shropshire when it opened up. Until then
marriage was postponed and their engagement remained private.

Lord Craven by Francis Cotes

The Fowles named
Tom’s brother Craven

Fowle to honor the family patron.

Tom’s options changed when the King’s brother Frederick Duke
of York, Army Commander-in-Chief, began to worry about the Army’s moral and
political health. Hoping representatives of the Church of England would
keep soldiers from sin and ungodly radicalism, the Duke
ruled chaplains must accompany regiments into the field.

Sailors Carousing by Cruickshank

The change of duty inspired
many chaplains to retire on their pensions, thus opening the field to younger
men like Tom Fowle. Tom sailed to the West Indies as a chaplain, not so much
for the money, but as a favor to a cousin who might return the favor by
patronage.

Capture of Trinidad by Nicholas Pocock

Lord Craven led his troops under Sir Ralph Abercromby,
engaged in empire building against the Spanish who were allied with the French enemy.
Poorly-defended Spanish colonies in the Caribbean were too tempting to ignore
and Abercromby captured the island of Trinidad, declaring it a British colony
in February, 1797.

The arrow at right points to Trinidad; the other to Santo Domingo southeast
of Cuba.

"The North Sea" is the Caribbean.

Craven’s chaplain Tom Fowle probably did not live to see that
victory. He died in early February in Santo Domingo in what we call the
Dominican Republic, an island north of Trinidad.

Yellow Fever (Yellow Jack) traveled beyond the

tropics with ships and sailors.

He succumbed to a
fever, perhaps yellow fever, malaria, encephalitis or any of the diseases
transmitted by the mosquitoes that actually ruled the tropics. The threat of
dying on duty in the West Indies was so great that Lord Craven wrote he’d never
have asked Tom to join the troops had he known he was engaged.

West Wind by Georgann Eglinksi

Ashdown Park

Jane and Cass continued to visit the Fowle family after
Tom’s death and they gossiped about Lord Craven, Lord of the Manor at
Ashdown House. In 1801, Jane wrote her sister that cousin “Eliza has seen Lord
Craven …. She found his manners very pleasing indeed. The little flaw of having
a Mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing
circumstance about him….”

West Wind by Bettina Havig

Cassandra never married. We
can recall her lost fiancé with West Wind, given the name by the Nancy Page
quilt column in the 1930s.

BlockBase #1393

Cutting a 12” Block

A - Cut 5 squares 4-7/8”. Cut each in half
with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You need 5 triangles.

B - Cut 2 squares 8-7/8”. Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

The Chawton Cottage museum owns this photo of Martha and a favorite
dog.

Mary’s sister Martha Lloyd became an Austen sister too,
first as a companion and affectionate friend to the neighbor house of
adolescent Austens and later as Cass’s sister-in-law after Jane died.

In 1805, after Martha's sister married and Mrs. Lloyd died, Martha was faced with an awkward future. As a single woman in her thirties, she could not continue to live alone at Ibthorp. Even if she could afford it, a woman just did not live alone.

Ibthorpe House has
changed little since Jane visited the Lloyds here.

I just read that their last name Lloyd was pronounced Floyd.

In Jane Austen’s England, a young- to middle-aged single woman had to guard her reputation by finding a home with relatives. Martha’s friends, the Austens, invited her to merge households with them, brother Frank and his young wife in Southampton. When the Austen sisters and their mother moved to Chawton, Martha went with them.

Daumier pictured the intellectual
woman

(Bluestocking) preferring books to cuisine.

Martha took over the kitchen
in the Austen/Lloyd household.

Best Friend by Georgann Eglinski

Martha read (and probably commented on) Jane’s manuscripts,
which prompted a typical joke in a letter to Cass. When Martha asked to read
the early Pride and Prejudice one
more time Jane asserted that Martha “was very cunning , but I see through her
design;-she means to publish it from memory & one more perusal will enable
her to do it.”

The Austen Patchwork
at Chawton Cottage

"My dear Cassandra, have you remembered to collect
pieces for the Patchwork? -- We are now at a standstill," wrote Jane in
1811, reminding her sister they were working on a bedcover at Chawton
Cottage. We must remember that Martha also lived at Chawton and likely had a
hand in the group project.

Chawton Cottage, photo
by Bettina Havig

After Jane died in 1817, Cass, Martha and Mrs. Austen
remained at Chawton. Ten years later Mrs. Austen died and Martha married
brother Frank when both were in their early sixties. At that point the widowed
Frank had 11 children ranging in age from 5 to 21 years old.

Best Friend by Bettina Havig

The 1841 census
found them living at Portsdown Lodge (Martha’s age was recorded as a generous
50—a typical white lie), with three girls still living at home and eight servants. Martha died two years later at
about 70 in actual years.

Sir Francis Austen, Admiral of the Fleet

Both Sir Francis and Lady Austen lived long enough to be
photographed. Frank died in 1865 in his nineties.

Best Friend by Dustin Cecil in silk

Read more about the Austen quilt in a post I did two years
ago. I didn’t then think of Martha as one of the seamstresses, the “we” Jane
wrote about, but she was always there.

We’ll celebrate the friendship of the Austens and Martha
Lloyd with Best Friend, a block published in 1932 by a batting company that
designed patterns under the name of Grandmother Clark.

BlockBase #1885

Cutting a 12” Block

A- Cut 20 squares of various shades 2”.

B - Cut 16 squares of various shades 2-3/8”. Cut each in half
with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You need 32
triangles.

C - Cut 4 rectangles 5” x 3-1/2”.

D – Cut 1 square 3-1/2”.

Sewing:

And on the subject of Jane Austen and needlework (called just "work" in Jane Austen's England):

Her niece Caroline Austen recalled Jane's mornings at embroidery.

"I think she generally sat in the
drawing room till luncheon: when visitors were there, chiefly at work---She was
fond of work---and she was a great adept at overcast and satin stitch---the particular
delight of that day…."

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Mary Lloyd was an Austen family neighbor in Steventon. After
her father died in 1789, young Mary moved with her mother and older sister
Martha to the parsonage at Deane, a house rented out by Reverend George Austen.

The house at Deane

When Mary married James Austen in 1797 she became Jane’s sister-in-law, although
those were not the words commonly used for the relationship in Jane Austen’s
England. Jane would have probably called her my sister Mary.

Jane often discussed sister Mary with Cassandra in the
letters and was not often kind. We guess Cassandra destroyed the frankest of
Jane’s letters so Jane may even had worse to say. What was the problem between
Jane and Mary?

James Austen

Speculation is that in the year before marrying Mary, James had courted his cousin Eliza. Both James and Eliza were widowed and close
in age, but Eliza made a good choice in James’s charming young brother Henry. James then made a good choice in friend Mary whom
Eliza described as "not either rich or handsome, but very sensible &
good hu­moured."

"Domestic Happiness"

Mary’s good humor did not extend to Eliza after her
marriage. The James Austens do not seem to have joined the family circle
when the Henry Austens were visiting. Jane, Eliza and Henry were close, so the rift may have begun.
“She is in the main NOT a liberal minded woman,” wrote Jane to Cassandra.

Cross Patch by Becky Brown

(Another brilliant fussy-cut!)

Jane, who'd lived there all her life, was unhappy

to leave the Steventon rectory in 1801.

When Jane’s father
retired from his two parishes at Deane and Steventon, resentment seems to have
increased. As eldest son, James took over the parish and parsonage at Deane, evicting the Lloyds. James then took over Steventon, evicting the
Austens. The gentle evictions (or, perhaps, not so gentle) were standard
procedure but Jane blamed Mary for taking advantage of her parents move to get
their furniture at a good price. Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

Cross Patch by Becky Brown

We’re taking sides here in a family quarrel but Cross Patch seems
a good block to remember Jane’s sister-in-law Mary. This name for an old pattern
was published in 1930 in the agricultural periodical The Rural New Yorker.

It’s BlockBase
#2414 .

Cutting a 12” Block

A – Cut 2 squares 2-7/8”. Cut each in half
with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

Sources for the Illustrations

See more about where I found the illustrations by clicking on the artist. Many of the actual objects are in the collection of Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton.

Books: Austen Biographies, History and Analysis

Below are a few of the books referenced in the posts.

Claire TomalinJane Austen: A Life

John MullanWhat Matters in Jane Austen

Paula Bryant The Real Jane Austen

Deirdre Le Faye Jane Austen: A Family Record

Deirdre Le Faye Jane Austen's Letters

Deirdre le Faye Jane Austen's Outlandish Cousin

BY A LADY

About the author: Barbara Brackman is an American who loves to read about the regency period. She knows a lot about American quilt patterns and will defer to Austen experts. Click on the portrait to see her main blog: